


What Have I Done?

by FandomLife54



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky's Story, Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gen, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Bucky'sFall, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 22:01:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4322337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomLife54/pseuds/FandomLife54
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look into Bucky Barnes' time with HYDRA, undergoing brainwashing and torture. </p>
<p>"They dropped him into a chair and latched him in, watching as electrical currents pierced into his head and he roared out in pain. Bucky didn't know what they were doing to him at the time but he could only presume the worst- and he was right. The scientists ran him through the brainwashing process dozens upon dozens of times, looking to scrub every corner of his mind clean so there was no reason to rebel or retaliate. Slowly, it was working."</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Have I Done?

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I hope you enjoy the fic. I cry for Bucky and I can't wait to see him again in Captain America:Civil War. Please like and comment. Thank you for reading!
> 
> P.s. If you want to know Bucky's full serial number as a soldier, it's  
> 32557038.

After Bucky fell from Zola's train, HYDRA operatives scattered throughout the mountain's region to reclaim their asset. They found what was left of the soldier in a pile of crimson snow and dragged the body back to their base. A single limb was missing but they made due with what they had. The metal prosthetic arm proved not to be the problem so much as the asset. Within seconds of gaining consciousness, Bucky had thrown one doctor straight across the room while another three struggled to hold him down. Drugs and incapacitating agents were enough to quiet him, but HYDRA wanted a weapon. 

They dropped him into a chair and latched him in, watching as electrical currents pierced into his head and he roared out in pain. Bucky didn't know what they were doing to him at the time but he could only presume the worst- and he was right. The scientists ran him through the brainwashing process dozens upon dozens of times, looking to scrub every corner of his mind clean so there was no reason to rebel or retaliate. Slowly, it was working.

The soldier drove himself mad trying to focus on the memories he couldn't remember and the people they made him forget. "3 2.. 5... 5 7...0 6- Wait, no not 6. 3. 0 3.. 0 3 5? No. 3 2 7 5- No.. 3-... Damn it." His tongue fumbled with the last four or five digits of his serial number as they jumbled together in his mind. He'd spend days saying the digits aloud in different orders to see if something in his brain sparked with recognition but once he had it, it was gone and he had to start all over again. A soldier's rank and serial numbers are what they are suppose to recite in situations like these, though, he felt like there was one more thing. Another thing he was supposed to recite- a name. His name. Yes, he thought, his name. But what was his name? 

The vicious pounding in his head as he willed himself to remember ceased when a lone thought whispered, "Steve." Everything went silent in that instant. Dumbfounded, he mumbled the word out loud into the empty bleakness that was his cell room, and faintly smiled at the sound. He said it again, louder, and a flicker of an image flashed in his head. The soldier sprung up from the corner of his prison, grinning wide and huffing as his heart beat wild in his chest. "Steve." he called out and another image flashed. "Steve!" he screamed merrily in a mantra as he began to recognize the bony blond smiling back at him in his mind. The soldier hadn't noticed he was dancing like a loon until one unsteady twirl sent him crashing to the ground. It didn't hurt; he continued laughing and gasping for breath. "Stevie..." He remembered. Steve Rogers: back-alley fighter of injustice, bullying, and every other evil that little punk saw in the world. The smile on his face eased with his content; he knew his best friend again.

His eyes drifted shut and he let the broken memories soothe him. In the far distance of his mind, he could hear Stevie's voice. It was beautiful. It was saying something. The soldier squeezed his eyes shut, creased his brows together in concentration, and blocked everything out just to listen closer. He couldn't hear him. Metal and flesh hands covered his ears to zero in on the sound but it only drifted between muted and muffled. His palms pressed into his skull as he grew in frustration and the soldier nearly lashed out in a sob before he heard it. "Bucky." he breathed. "He called me Bucky."

Bucky scrambled around his cell, settling for the corner he usually slept, and lied down accordingly. He fidgeted around making sure this was how he would lie: flesh arm for a pillow and body scrunched up to face the wall. In the small gray space he directly looked at in this position, his metal finger rose and chipped away into the wall. When it was done, he dropped his prosthetic hand and stared at the engraving.

"Steve & Bucky"

.....

Every time they wiped his memories, Bucky would eventually return to his cell to sleep. He could hold onto fragments of memories alone (the longer he went without being brainwashed, the more he collected), but the engraving always pieced them together instantly. Eventually, with just a glance at the words, Bucky would remember skinny Steve and Steve as Captain America like muscle memory. The blond acted as Bucky's anchor and gave him the will to fight HYDRA, Zola, and the experimentations in any ways he could. It was difficult; punishment was hauntingly gruesome and he had scars to prove it. He endured it until one day- how long after his capture he didn't know- a series of newspapers flopped down in front of his freshly beaten body. The headlines were bold with titles of "CAPTAIN AMERICA: OUR FALLEN HERO" , "MARTYR OF FREEDOM: CAPTAIN CRASHES PLANE INTO THE OCEAN" and "NUCLEAR EVASION: THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR HIS COUNTRY" with pictures of Stevie printed on every cover. Bucky nearly fell unconscious for forgetting to breath. 

They left him in his cell with the papers to wallow and cry out, his echoes acting as his only consolation. There were slight tears at the top of each newspaper packet where Bucky nearly ripped the pages to sheds in his rage, but he couldn't bring himself to destroy the only pictures of his best friend he had. His best friend he had stood by through the war to protect.

Collapsed in on himself after another rant of destruction, Bucky stared down at the inked dates with puffy eyes. He wanted to believe he hadn't been here long but by the texture and yellowing of the paper, he knew they were aged. Bucky snatched the papers and read, reread, then read again. He knew this mission. It was Captain America's next move if the train mission was successful. Who'd have thought the first mission without Bucky there to keep him from doing something stupid, Steve would willingly nose dive himself into the biggest body of water he could find. Bucky's shoulders hunched inward and shook as he thought it through. He laughed, escalating from chocked chuckled to a full out howl of hysteria. He laughed himself to tears. How could he be so stupid as to trust Steve not to pull a stunt like that? Steve always threw himself into battle, super soldier or not. Bucky knew better than to try and stop him so he stayed by his side to watch his back instead. Now... Now Bucky had no one to go home to. Now he was alone. "You should have just stayed in Brooklyn, punk. Damn it..."

.....

Bucky didn't care much for anything after that. Hydra operatives were forced to drag him around like the rag doll they wanted him to be. When they wiped him though, he'd forget everything but the fragments of Steve he held closest to his heart. So, naturally, the machine erased the memories of Captain America's death. When it did and Bucky got his fighting spirit back, they'd show him the newspapers and he'd fall into the same broken state over and over and over again. 

As time passed, the brainwashing technology advanced and they knew every trick to dealing with their asset. Bucky didn't need to be shown the newspapers anymore. The fragile little boy scratching at the back of his mind was numbed away from his thoughts and he somehow liked it better that way. It made his missions easier for some reason he couldn't remember. 

When he faced a blond man on the roof, then again on the bridge, he felt that itching in the back of his mind. There was something familiar about the man. He knew him. He asked his handler about it. When was the last time he questioned someone about anything?It was a mistake to question his handler; he was reminded why. Armed men motioned him back into the chair and wiped him, taking everything but the pain. No matter what they made sure he remembered the pain. It kept him focused- focused on his mission. And his current mission was the man dressed in blue, wielding a shield and talking to him. What is the man saying? He couldn't concentrate on the words enough to understand. It's not what they want him to be focused on. Focus on the mission. He attacked. 

The more the man talked, the more the itching chipped away at him and soon the scratching turned to clawing and he could feel himself getting angrier. This hadn't happened before had it? He didn't remember. He didn't need to remember. 

The Helicarriers fell apart around them. The scream ringing in his ear didn't phase him until he realized it came from his own throat. He was trapped. The metal grip couldn't inch the giant pillar pinning him. The carrier was going down. It was over. A strange feeling clung onto his heart. Fear. The emotion was so foreign to the asset he didn't know what to do. 

The man in blue flopped down to the floor, edging forward as he braced his wounded abdomen. The asset tried to make himself as small as possible, wanting to heave the pillar off of himself and finish the mission. It wouldn't budge and he was sure he was about to die. The man inched closer and... Knelt down to lift the pillar as the asset dragged himself from under. Did the man just help him? Why? He started talking again. The asset could hear him but he wasn't making any sense. Every word pounded a violent ripple in his head. He just wanted the man to shut up. The man took off his helmet and dropped the shield down into the water. Water, his mind twitched. He listened to the man but he couldn't possibly be telling the truth. It had to be a trap. 

Why did he feel so angry? The tearing at the back of his head screamed at him to remember but he didn't want to. He was scared. He was scared because he knew if he remembered, it was going to hurt. Something was going to hurt him. Not the torture, the brainwashing, the training or the Red Room. It was something else. He couldn't remember. Focus on the mission.

"You're my friend." The asset tackled the man to the ground.

"You're my mission." His punches were of blind rage now. Was he ever this distraught on previous missions? He couldn't remember. He looked down to the bruised and bloody blond below him. The sight reminded him of someone. 

"Then finish it.. 'Cause I'm with you till the end of the line." 

He knew those words. He remembered this face. He recognized this voice. 

Stevie. 

No! No, no. Steve's dead. Why did he know that? Why did he care? His heart ached. 

Stevie. 

Stevie's his friend. His best friend. His best friend died. But he was right here! Steve was alive, right in front of him and he- oh god. 

What had he done?


End file.
